The flexibility, portability, and accessibility the iPad delivers is a great tool for litigators, but it’s really not that powerful if your applications aren’t built for the Mac environment. Unfortunately, Trial Director, Sanction and Summation are not supported on a Mac. Nextpoint, however is a native, cloud-based technology provider, meaning it works on your iPad, iPhone, Windows or Mac desktop, or whatever platform you use. Additionally, in 2011 Nextpoint optimized all of its trial, discovery, and preservation applications for the iPad, meaning it will always look and run great on the iPad or any Mac device.

Native Matters

Optimization for the Mac and iPad matters most in the courtroom, where litigators need to know that their presentations and files look exactly right and they can access files quickly and easily. Most litigators know that many court reporters deliver deposition transcripts in the PTX format, which is a proprietary, encrypted file, only readable with RealLegal software. RealLegal is, of course, not well-suited for the Mac. As you can see in this tutorial on viewing transcripts stored in the PTX format, the format is a real headache for lawyers, especially if they need to quickly review a transcript in court.

One of the great benefits of web-based applications is the ability to be (largely) hardware/operating system independent. That’s why Nextpoint’s Trial Cloud is the only platform that supports PTX files for Macs, iPads, or any other platform you can think of. The Mac and the iPad are quickly becoming powerful tools for litigators. Unfortunately, it will be a long time before the rest of the litigation support industry catches up.